BBC Radio 2 – The Musical

Don’t miss this excellent new series on BBC Radio 2 all about the musical.

The eight part series started on Monday, 6 September 2010, at 10pm UK time (listen again here) and each week will cover a different aspect of the world of musical theatre and its 80 year history.

The Musical is presented by a different name in musical theatre each week – with this Monday’s show voiced by award-winning actress Sian Phillips.

This first programme, “Stories with Songs”, revealed the importance of a good book – or story – in a musical, and the contradiction between this and why so few musicals choose to adapt existing stories rather than originate their own. Shows used to demonstrate include The Boy Friend, A Chorus Line, Chess, Starlight Express and Sunday In The Park With George, with lots of showbiz contributions from the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Patti Lupone, John Barrowman, Elaine Stritch, Maria Friedman, Sandy Wilson, Ruthie Henshall, Tim Rice, Elaine Paige, Marvin Hamlisch and Michael Grandage.

Episode two, “Drawn From Life” will be presented by musicals star, Sondheim aficionado and current artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, Daniel Evans, and covers some of the life-stories of real people used in musicals, from Gypsy and Evita to The King and I.

The Musical is produced by Malcolm Prince, who also produces Elaine Paige’s Sunday show on Radio 2.

A number of other theatrical documentaries will come to Radio 2 this autumn including a look at the history of the London Palladium in its centenary year.

LINKS

Listen to The Musical – Episode 1

BBC Radio 2 – The Musical

Casting: Ruthie Henshall in Blithe Spirit

West End and Broadway musicals star Ruthie Henshall is to go legit with a starring role in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

Henshall is to star as Elvira in a new revival of Noel Coward’s classic comedy at the Apollo Theatre in London from 2 March 2011.

Winner of an Olivier Award for her performance in She Loves Me, Ruthie Henshall has played some of the West End and Broadway’s biggest shows including Crazy For You, Chicago, Miss Saigon and Oliver!

Henshall will join a star-studded cast for the play, including Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey) as Madame Arcati, and Cold Feet’s Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Alex) as Charles and Ruth Condomine.

In the play, the novelist Charles Condomine (Bathurst) and his second wife Ruth (Norris) are haunted when an eccentric medium (Steadman) manages to conjure up the ghost of Charles’s neurotic and beautiful first wife, Elvira (Henshall), at a séance.

The spirited comedy will open at Theatre Royal Bath later this year before a UK tour and West End opening in the Spring.

Noel Coward’s comedy will be directed by Thea Sharrock, who recently enjoyed enormous success for her production of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance at the National Theatre. She will return to Rattigan next year for his Centenary by directing Cause Célèbre, which will open at the Old Vic Theatre on 17 March, a few days after Blithe Spirit opens in London.

No stranger to Blithe Spirit, Sharrock directed a 2004 production of the play at the Savoy Theatre starring Penelope Keith. The Noel Coward classic, first produced in 1941, has had numerous UK revivals in the last few years.

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Actress Winners

OLIVIER AWARDS – BEST ACTRESS WINNERS

Best Actress

2012 Ruth Wilson for Anna Christie
2011 Nancy Carroll for After the Dance
2010 Rachel Weisz for A Streetcar Named Desire
2009 Margaret Tyzack for The Chalk Garden
2008 Kristin Scott Thomas for Chekhov’s The Seagull
2007 Tamsin Greig for Much Ado About Nothing
2006 Eve Best for Hedda Gabler
2005 Clare Higgins for Hecuba
2004 Eileen Atkins for Honour
2003 Clare Higgins for Vincent In Brixton
2002 Lindsay Duncan for Private Lives
2001 Julie Walters for All My Sons
2000 Janie Dee for Comic Potential
1999 Eileen Atkins for The Unexpected Man
1998 Zoë Wanamaker for Electra
1997 Janet McTeer for A Doll’s House
1996 Judi Dench for Absolute Hell
1995 Clare Higgins for Sweet Bird Of Youth
1994 Fiona Shaw for Machinal
1993 Alison Steadman for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
1992 Juliet Stevenson for Death And The Maiden
1991 Kathryn Hunter for The Visit
1989/90 Fiona Shaw for Electra, As You Like It and The Good Person Of Sichuan
1987 Judi Dench for Antony and Cleopatra
1986 Lindsay Duncan for Les Liaisons Dangereuses
1985 Yvonne Bryceland for The Road To Mecca

Actress of the Year in a New Play

1988 Pauline Collins for Shirley Valentine
1984 Thuli Dumakude for Poppie Nongena
1983 Judi Dench for Pack Of Lies
1982 Rosemary Leach for 84 Charing Cross Road
1981 Elizabeth Quinn for Children Of A Lesser God
1980 Frances de la Tour for Duet For One
1979 Jane Lapotaire for Piaf
1978 Joan Plowright for Filumena
1977 Alison Fiske for Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi
1976 Peggy Ashcroft for Old World

Actress of the Year in a Revival

1988 Harriet Walter for Twelfth Night and The Three Sisters
1984 Vanessa Redgrave for The Aspern Papers
1983 Frances de la Tour for A Moon For The Misbegotten
1982 Cheryl Campbell for A Doll’s House
1981 Margaret Tyzack for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
1980 Judi Dench for Juno And The Paycock
1979 Zoë Wanamaker for Once In A Lifetime
1978 Dorothy Tutin for The Double Dealer
1977 Judi Dench for Macbeth
1976 Dorothy Tutin for A Month In The Country

Best Actress in a Musical

2012 The Matildas for Matilda The Musical (Sophia Kiely, Kerry Ingram, Cleo Demetriou and Eleanor Worthington Cox)
2011 Sheridan Smith for Legally Blonde – The Musical
2010 Samantha Spiro for Hello Dolly!
2009 Elena Roger for Piaf
2008 Leanne Jones for Hairspray
2007 Jenna Russell for Sunday In The Park With George
2006 Jane Krakowski for Guys And Dolls
2005 Laura Michelle Kelly for Mary Poppins
2004 Maria Friedman for Ragtime at the Piccadilly
2003 Joanna Riding for My Fair Lady
2002 Martine McCutcheon for My Fair Lady
2001 Samantha Spiro for Merrily We Roll Along
2000 Barbara Dickson for Spend Spend Spend
1999 Sophie Thompson for Into The Woods
1998 Ute Lemper for Chicago
1997 Maria Friedman for Passion
1996 Judi Dench for A Little Night Music
1995 Ruthie Henshall for She Loves Me
1994 Julia McKenzie for Sweeney Todd
1993 Joanna Riding for Carousel
1992 Wilhelmenia Fernandez for Carmen Jones
1991 Imelda Staunton for Into The Woods
1989/90 Lea Salonga for Miss Saigon
1988 Patricia Routledge for Candide
1987 Nichola McAuliffe for Kiss Me Kate
1986 Lesley Mackie for Judy
1985 Patti LuPone for Les Misérables and The Cradle Will Rock
1984 Natalia Makarova for On Your Toes
1983 Barbara Dickson for Blood Brothers
1982 Julia McKenzie for Guys And Dolls
1981 Carlin Glynn for The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas
1980 Gemma Craven for They’re Playing Our Song
1979 Virginia McKenna for The King And I

Ruthie Henshall in Chicago – Save £20

Save £20.75 on tickets to see CHICAGO at the Cambridge Theatre in London

Offer valid all performances except Saturday Evenins (excludes School Holidays)

NOW STARRING RUTHIE HENSHALL UNTIL 18 APRIL.

Eleven years on Chicago still remains ‘the hottest show in town’. And for a limited time only the original star of the London show, RUTHIE HENSHALL, rejoins the cast to play Roxie Hart.

Created by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, Chicago is the kiss-and-tell story of chorus girl Roxie who kills her lover; Velma Kelly, the glamorous double-murderer and Billy Flynn, the slick and manipulative lawyer keeping them from death row while promising to make them stars, has all the topicality of our celebrity-seeking times. It also provides some of the most sensational roles in all musical theatre.

Be razzled and dazzled by Chicago: a true Broadway and West End classic.

‘Still the hottest show in town’ The Independent.

‘A sleek package of sex, murder, great songs and arch wit’ Evening Standard.

‘The sharpest, slickest show on the block!’ The Times.

Save £20.75 on tickets to see CHICAGO at the Cambridge Theatre in London

Offer valid all performances except Saturday Evenins (excludes School Holidays)

Ruthie makes Chicago return

Ruthie Henshall will reprise her acclaimed performance as Roxie Hart this month when she returns to hit musical Chicago.

The award-winning actress, who originated the role of Roxie in 1997, will star in the show from 14 December for a limited 9 week run.  Between 28 December and 2 January, Bonnie Langford will take over the role, fresh from her success playing Roxie on Broadway.

Also featuring in the cast will be Terra C MacLeod, who will make her London stage debut as Velma Kelly after playing the role in Paris, Montreal, New York and the National USA production. Ian Kelsey and David Ganly star as Billy Flynn and Amos Hart.

The show, which plays at the Cambridge Theatre in London, recently celebrated 5000 performances in the West End and is currently playing in New York, Australia, Denmark and on tour both in the UK and US.

Ruthie Henshall has appeared in numerous West End and Broadway shows including Marguerite, Crazy for You, She Loves Me, The Woman in White, Cats, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Oliver!, Putting it Together and Peggy Sue Got Married.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £20 on tickets to see Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre in London

Marguerite Review

It’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that for a musical to succeed, you need to have a leading man or woman (preferably both) for whom you can root. The only exception I can think of is Sweeney Todd – and even that show was never the popular success of, say, My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story or Rodgers and Hammerstein’s blockbusters.

One of the numerous problems with Marguerite, the new Boublil/Schonberg musical, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and music by Michel Legrand, is that its titular heroine (Ruthie Henshall) is a loose-living opportunist, who, during France’s occupation by the Nazis, has an affair with a Nazi general called Otto (Alexander Hanson), not because she loves him but because of the nylon stockings and other gifts his status provides.

In the original story by Alexandre Dumas of which this is just one more variation, Marguerite was a courtesan who sacrifices her genuine love for a well-connected young man when her lover’s father persuades her to end the affair or risk ruining his son’s life and reputation.

This time round she’s a middle-aged singer who, despite her involvement with Otto, falls for Armand (Julian Ovenden) a handsome young pianist whose sister Annette (Annalene Beechey) works for the resistance. Needless to say, the ordure hits the fan. Armand becomes a hunted man, his sister is tortured by the Gestapo, he shoots Otto at close range and goes into hiding.

As soon as the war is over, Marguerite, now seen as a collaborator, is physically abused and humiliated by the same Parisian ‘friends’ who benefited from her affair with Otto. She dies from some unspecified condition as the curtain falls. Doom and gloom prevail without a single laugh to leaven the bleakness of it all. And there wasn’t a moist eye in the house.

Blame this on an ill-conceived book by Messrs Boublil, Schonberg and Jonathan Kent, who also directed. The authors totally fail to make you care for any of the two-dimensional characters, the sub-plot is marginally more interesting than the central romance, and a sense of deja vu seeps miasma-like through the show’s two short acts.

Michel Legrand has written some potentially attractive tunes but what we have is a collection of songs (mainly ballads) rather than a fully integrated score. His melodies, as pretty as they are, never rise to the kind of sweeping climax Andrew Lloyd Webber is so good at concocting, and, consequently, fail to invite applause. A big mistake, this.

Herbert Kretzmer’s elegant, thoroughly professional lyrics do their best to advance what little plot there is, but I wish I’d heard more of them in the duets and trios.

Kent’s direction is workmanlike, though his decision to begin the curtain calls without a single note of music until Ruthie Henshall appears for the final call is not only insulting to the rest of the cast, but just bad theatre. With so downbeat an ending, surely you’d immediately want to raise the audience’s sagging spirits with some upbeat music?

As Marguerite, Henshall gives her all. She sings well and is clearly committed to the role. But it’s a cold performance that never engages your sympathy. And while there’s not much to like or admire about her character, one should at least feel some compassion for her. Julian Ovenden sings well and looks good – but the role allows him to do little more than mope, which he does effectively enough. The best performance is Alexander Hanson’s Otto. The part is an elongated cliché, but at least he covers it in flesh and bones.

The undisputed success of this work in- progress is Paul Brown’s smokey, visually striking set, whose stylish, opulence contrasts dramatically with the murky existence of the show’s leading character, her fetid involvement with her Nazi admirer, and her drab, unfulfilled romance with Armand.

It’s one thing removing the ‘comedy’ from musical comedy. Trouble is, Boublil, Schonberg and Kent, in attempting to write a musical with gravitas, haven’t found anything to replace it with.

Haymarket Theatre.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

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